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Teachers resign after arrests disclosed |
2009-09-14 |
By Martha Barksdale |
Whitewater High School was rocked Thursday when two of its music teachers resigned after school officials learned they had been arrested for soliciting prostitutes for sex in DeKalb County.
Choral director Kelly Butler and band director Doug Dee were arrested May 12 in DeKalb County. According to WSB-TV, Butler and Dee contacted two girls for sex off the Web site Craigslist. They agreed on a price of $200, the television station reported. The girls turned out to be part of a police sting, and Butler and Dee were arrested at a Dunwoody hotel.
Dee pled not guilty during an arraignment in DeKalb County Court yesterday. Butler waived her appearance.
Fayette County Schools Spokesperson Melinda Berry-Dreisbach said no one in the county school system knew anything about the arrests until the television station contacted them seeking comment.
Whitewater Principal Greg Stillions sent a letter home with students Thursday. In it, he explained the arrests and subsequent resignations. He assured parents that “these allegations did not occur at the school and do not involve any students.”
A search of released inmates from the DeKalb County Jail turned up a listing for Butler, which showed that she was arrested and released on Aug. 19, although the date of the offense was listed as May 12. Dee’s name is on the Web site backwards, listing Dee as his first name and Douglas as his last. According to the website, both Dee and Butler were charged with pandering persons under 17 years of age.
Dee, 40, had taught in Fayette County Schools since 1997, Berry-Dreisbach said, and had been at Whitewater since 2003. Butler, 33, began teaching in Fayette schools in 2001 and moved to Whitewater in 2003 also, Berry-Dreisbach said.
“We will be working diligently to replace them,” she said. “We appreciate and understand the concern, and we will replace them with highly-qualified educators,” she said.
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